Tag: Middle age

Rest is non-negotiable

I am disappointed to share that at the time of typing, I remain rubbish at rest. But I am committed to updating my schedule to incorporate rest. The frazzled headache I started my day with screamed at me, ‘Jo, you’re overdoing it again’, which is fair and true and requires immediate, corrective action.

The legend of a dad that I have adopted for myself, reminded me earlier this week,

‘Please remember as we get older, we need to rest more’.

What wise words. But if I don’t apply them in practice they are about as helpful as medicine that remains in the cabinet or a bible that’s gathering dust.

Earlier this week I met with my fabulous neighbour who always reminds me of the sort of wisdom I am prone to forgetting, as well as introducing her own. She commented on how people talk about working super hard to earn their rest. While there is a reality to this for anyone engaged in adulting, she made the point that we need rest regardless of how productive we have or haven’t been. We may need more if we’ve been super active but we need rest regardless and more of it as we age. This simply hadn’t entered my thinking before!

The other point was one my neighbour pointed out to me last year which was that we even need to say ‘no’ to doing things we love. I know I need to stop expecting my brain to multitask at unsustainable speeds for way too many hours per day. But I also need to limit and reduce time spent indulging in playful activities. To recognise the need to reduce work, despite loving it, is one thing but I’m really struggling with reducing play!

I still remember the first time I realised how utterly exhausting play can be. This occurred during my later-to-the-party-than-most gap years. I couldn’t resist going in the sea on an inflatable banana while island hopping around Thailand. The constant process of lurching through the air into the sea, swimming back to the banana, hauling myself back on to it and trying to hold up my bikini to avoid flashing my arse, was more exhausting than it looks from the shore!

Anyway, all these years later and I’m still struggling to accept that I don’t only need to reduce my working hours but also the playing ones. The only thing I need to increase is my resting time. Or rather, I need to start introducing it rather than just conking out if I sit still or when I lay down at night. 

While messaging a fellow counsellor and feline friend owner this week, I couldn’t resist sharing a photo of Monty boy sprawled on the sofa next to me. He sleeps more and more these days, I thought to myself, feeling slightly envious. And then I got it! Oh, he’s modelling resting to me as something essential as we age rather than the optional extra that I’ve been treating it as. Apparently, what makes animals different to us is that they don’t think. I know they feel because Monty is a master at all kinds of expressions, especially the nonchalant, disinterested look he freely gives to all my guests. Anyway, I remain unconvinced that an animal’s inability to think, puts them at a disadvantage. This is because an overdeveloped human intellect combined with underdeveloped instinctual feelings can leave us vulnerable to doing what our mind demands over what our body needs. There are some prevalent and insidious ‘shoulds’ that if left unchecked, can keep us bound to unhelpful ways of being, or rather overdoing. For example, there are beliefs that ‘resting is lazy’, or ‘self-care is selfish’. How deeply entrenched these destructive ideas can be. Although I’ve made progress, I remain prone to these. I will try to correct this situation with actions rather than more lip service.

To this end, I’m going to schedule some wall gazing, daisy watching, birdsong listening windows of time in my daily diary, moving forwards. My feline loving fellow counsellor wisely flagged up attempting 75% of what I think I can do in a day. There is definitely room for improvement here  as I’ve been  operating at about 125% in between conk outs!

Meanwhile, when he’s not looking out of his cat flap wondering if the rain will ever stop, Monty is enjoying a nap upstairs on my bed.  Maybe I’ll even let myself join him later!

Eyes, ears and the consumer of cake

How grateful I am to have finally granted myself permission to take my foot off the gas. Or rather, I have been forced to over these past few years and eventually, I have accepted the need for less speed. I have even begun to overcome my initial shocking attitude of anything but gratitude.

Anyway, one of my growing reasons for finally appreciating doing less and being more is the issue of maintenance. It feels to me that ever since the mayhem of middle-aged hormonal havoc began its reign of life altering activities, it has become something of a part time job to maintain my system. And that’s not just trying to get a GP appointment and then another one with someone trained on menopause and then get a prescription for something that is then out of stock. That’s a separate story that I can’t be arsed to tell right now as it would dampen my mood more than these January, February, March and April showers.

So, back to the eyes, ears and cake gnashers; this year I have had them all cleaned, unblocked and checked for signs of anything sinister. I am pleased to report that aside from the expected wear and tear associated with middle age, I’m apparently looking healthy. I am very pleased to hear this as I am a very visual person and one who listens for a living. Tick, tick. And I’ve even stopped complaining and getting the hump about the ever-diminishing size of the font on anything that I really want or need to read. Upon seeing me squinting at a menu through one eye in the way I used to watch the TV back in my inebriated days, my partner offered me his glasses. To my surprise and delight, I could then read the menu using both eyes minus the need for squinting or winking. Subsequently I had to relent and buy myself some of those supermarket stocking magnifying glasses that I always swore I would never wear. Oh how things change! I once said I’d never own one of those awful garden gnome things yet there is one looking at me from my own garden. I know, I can only assume I bought it in one of my many moments of madness. I blame hormones; the more I learn about them, the more I understand they are responsible for virtually all the body’s functioning, or in middle age, malfunctioning. True story. But, if I ever hit the three ducks on the wall stage, someone have a word.

Anyway, I can now see and hear again which is a big bonus as per the above. And of course, as a baker and consumer of cake, I need to keep my gnashers in good shape. Even more so now that I have recovered my ability to bear them in a smile rather than a grimace or growl. I find it ironic that I have such super strong teeth that I’ve never had a filling (honestly, despite the cakes), yet I’ve always been prone to weak gums. If these are not maintained sufficiently, they can recede so far that my teeth, irrespective of strength, will fall out. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour. Either way a set of falsies does not appeal. Of course, should these gnashers of mine do the off, I suspect the desire for cake will cause me to change my mind about this too.

However, what I do apparently need is a protector for nightly gnashing. Like many of us, I am a serial clencher and grinder of gnashers. Apparently, my back canines are no longer so sharp having been ground down by a lifetime of poor stress management. I know how they feel! While I have reduced stress, I cannot know or control what my body may still be doing at night in this regard. The outcome of my need for a tooth guard was an invoice that I was presented with upon departing the Dentist. Fortunately, the instinctive teeth clenching manoeuvre prevented the words, ‘Ow much?’ from flying out loudly. It was the price of an overseas holiday. Last year I wasn’t well enough to go overseas and this year I may not be well off enough! Luckily for me, I’m still revelling in the gratitude of feeling way better this year than I have in recent years!

All in all, maintaining this aging system of mine is now my new part time job, which isn’t overly enjoyable but is utterly essential. This despite the pay being crap and the cost being high. I suspect the cost of not accepting this job, would be higher still.

According to an older friend of mine, this maintenance business becomes a full-time job in retirement. I’ll need a pension then so I can retire and accept that job should God grant me those years.